


Everything Stays

by Darke_Eco_Freak



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Human Daxter (Jak and Daxter), M/M, Mute Jak, Slice of Life, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darke_Eco_Freak/pseuds/Darke_Eco_Freak
Summary: They plan to visit Misty Island, they have it all set, how they'll get there and when they'll go. They're ready, then, Daxter gets sick and they don't. Jak and Daxter never go on their world saving adventure, they never meet Gol and Maia, and they never find any warp gates. Instead, they stay in SandOver, for years and years, even when the plants start dying and when storms trap them in their huts. Even when Samos disappears and the villagers start getting picked off one by one, they stay.





	Everything Stays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_darkstreak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_darkstreak/gifts).



> This fic was done in exchange for cute kitty pattern and based on art by Lady_Darkstreak. Thank you so much for the pattern and I hope you like this <3

When he’s fifteen, Samos tells them not to visit Misty Island, under no circumstances, or they’ll be punished. Daxter wants to go because they’ve been told not to, and Jak does too. They even plan everything out, when to take the boat, how long they can stay, what they should bring. Daxter thinks Samos has a stick up his ass, says so bold and brash, but looks over his shoulder to make sure no one hears.

Daxter thinks the island is abandoned, they’ll just find some bones, maybe a few Precursor things, but nothing interesting. Misty Island’s just a place where no one goes because it’s got nothing going on. No one can plant there because the soil’s poor and no one wants to live there because who’d wanna live out in the mist? Jak thinks Daxter’s right, Samos is just being himself and forbidding them from having fun, it’s nothing.

The perfect day comes when the fisherman heads into the jungle with his nets, when Samos asks not to be bothered because he’s tending a new plant, when Keira’s holed up working on something. No one else is around to see them or stop them, and they get as far as the boat before their careful plans fall apart.

Daxter gets sick. Steps one foot in the boat and spews vomit right down his shirt, splashing in the boat, falling in the water. He vomits until there’s nothing but stringy spit on his lips and his face’s paler than Jak’s ever seen it. They don’t go to Misty Island because Daxter’s too sick to even move and Samos says he’s never seen anything like it.

Weeks pass, months pass, and Daxter’s still sick. Samos adds a little addition to his hut for Daxter because it’s easier than moving him and easier than Samos floating over to the village every day. Dax needs constant care that Jak tries his best to give, though he doesn’t understand what’s going on, what’s happening.

He gets water from the river, boils it and strains it until it’s pure, then he soaks green eco plants in it, making a weak tea just like Samos showed him. He helps the fisherman in return for fish, which is all Daxter can stomach anymore. He takes care of the yakow and the farmer gives him the herbs Samos needs to make medicine for Daxter's headaches. He cleans out the Ms Perch’s cages and she gives him fresh eggs that Dax can have only sometimes.

They don’t go on adventures anymore because Daxter is sick. He’s pale and clammy and most of the time his throat’s too sore to make jokes. Sometimes he’s so tired he can’t raise his hands to talk so Jak does all the talking, going slow so Dax can see what he’s saying. Sometimes Dax is too tired to open his eyes and he sleeps the day away.

When he can, Jak sits by Daxter’s bed and reads the books his uncle got on his adventures. He thinks about Warrior Sages fighting off Lurker hoards, instead of Daxter’s pale, freckled face. He imagines Eco Maidens with fiery red hair and glowing yellow eyes, instead of Daxter getting thinner and thinner in his bed. He learns about floating gardens and huge sprawling cities across the ocean and swallows the lump in his throat when Daxter whines in his sleep. 

Everyone thinks Dax isn’t going to make it, Jak can see it in their faces, hear it in their voices. They never say it to his face, but he’s used to hearing what people say when they don’t think he’s paying attention. They think he’s dumb cause he doesn’t talk, sometimes he thinks they mix up deaf with mute, or they never cared to figure it out in the first place.

When he’s herding yakows, the farmer tells the Ms Perch “ _any day now, you just wait and see Tweetledov_ ”. When he’s helping the fisherman haul in a catch, he hears his uncle “ _terrible business, simply terrible. A mercy we’re not all infected_ ”. Jak hears even Samos talking to someone through the warp gate “ _-not how it’s supposed to go, and I can’t help him. I think this is it, another week-_ ” and runs away before he can hear anymore.

Dax _does_ make it though, after months of being too weak to speak and surviving on fish and eco tea. He gets better in spurts and jerks, sitting up one day and sleeping for two afterwards, walking across his whole room then collapsing in a sweaty, panting heap. Jak’s there with him the whole time, helping him stand up, feeding him biscuits dipped in tea to make them soft.

Keira’s there sometimes, with little machines to help Daxter hold a cup or a cane to walk. She never stays for hours like Jak, but she’s there, never tries to tell jokes but smiles when Daxter croaks out one. She’s gentler with Dax, nicer, and Jak has to blink hard whenever he thinks about why.

So Dax gets better, he proves everyone wrong, but they never plan another Misty Island trip, never even crosses their minds. Daxter needs a cane to walk now, he gets tired if he walks too long, he can’t run anymore. Sometimes they go for walks on the beach and Dax is so tired that Jak has to piggy back him around, but he doesn’t care.

His best friend is better and that’s all he cares about.

They can go to the jungle again, they can splash in the ocean again; they don’t have to sit in a stuffy room and wonder if this is how things’ll be forever. Sure Daxter is shorter than him now, frail Samos says, but Jak doesn’t care, it makes it easier to carry Dax. He’s paler too, paler by a lot, and he can’t eat just anything but Jak’s good at taking care of him now.

He knows what berries are acidic and will make Dax upset and he knows what herbs will fix upset bellies. He doesn’t know what to do when Dax gets sad though, what to say when Dax gets mad and shoves him away.

“I can walk!”

“I don’t need yer help.”

“I ain’t some dead weight Jak!”

Dax looks almost like he did before when he’s mad, face flushed red, nose scrunched up. He waves his cane in the air, sometimes he flings it away, sometimes he gets up and leaves, sometimes he runs. Jak doesn’t understand but Keira tells him he doesn’t need to understand, when he asks her what to do. She doesn’t know either, but she tells him to leave Dax alone.

Jak’s been taking care of him for months, almost a whole year now, Dax probably just needs some space. Or something, she’s really not sure, and neither of them want to ask an adult. Dax getting sick made the villagers dislike him less, but they still don’t like him. They like that he’s quieter, can’t get into trouble anymore, well as much trouble. They like that he doesn’t get in their things and all he can really do is sit and watch the days go by.

Jak and Keira aren’t gonna ask the villagers. They don’t ask Samos, because Samos doesn’t like Daxter either, but at least he’s nice enough to be quieter about it. And he’s not around as much. Keira says he re-established contact with the other Sages, she says something big is going on and the Sages are getting ready for it.

They all wanna know, even Daxter, but they’re kids, not even sixteen yet. No one’s gonna tell them anything, not even if Keira asks extra nice. So they do whatever they wanna do, Jak helps the farmer and the fisherman and Ms Perch. He learns how to mix up the herbs that make Daxter's headaches go away and he learns how to fight off lurkers. He was good at it before but now he's much better. He has to fight them to get the herbs, push them off ledges and punch them away when they try to grab him. 

Sometimes he's not fast enough, or strong enough, and they grab him, leave claw marks that hurt, but he makes them hurt twice as hard. Jak never tells anyone, they all think he's just good at sneaking by, and he lets them think that. He doesn't know what they'll say if they know that he kills the lurkers, if they'll treat him like a freak, if they'll punish him, so he makes sure they never find out. 

Jak’s sixteen when the plants start dying, Dax can walk along the beach without needing a piggy back, and Keira’s making something to carry people across harsh terrain. None of them think it’s special-special, none of them mark the day.

When the grass goes yellow and brittle and dead; first the weeds that pop up after the rainy season, then the grass that grows everywhere, then flowers and grains. The villagers mutter about it, the farmer has Jak replant a whole oat field, but no one thinks it’s strange. Sometimes plants just die, maybe it’s the weather, maybe there’s a pest, whatever it is, it’s not important.

Samos even says so, and he talks to the plants. Samos says there’s nothing to worry about but Jak can hear the lie, and Keira sees it, and Dax tastes it, literally. He tells them that his teas taste different, the herbal ones, there’s less herbs in it and more eco. Because the herbs are dying, even with the Green Sage there to care for them, they’re still dying.

 After a week, there’s no more grass on the ground and the sand burns Jak’s feet. His uncle cuts him a pair of shoes from yakow leather and Daxter helps him sew them. They do it together in Daxter’s little room, hunched over with the needle, thread and awl. Daxter already has shoes, because Samos won’t let him walk around without them, who knows if his sickness was from not wearing them in the first place?

Keira comes by and points out what’s wrong, but it’s mostly just them. The shoes take all afternoon, because Daxter keeps making jokes and Jak has to stop sewing so he can answer. They laugh and talk and spend the hours happy, happier than they’ve been in so long. Neither of them even worry about the shoes they’re making, or why they’re making them, and when they’re done, it’s already night time and Jak doesn’t need them.

Over the next month, trees start dying, and Samos disappears for days. People in the village sigh when the trees turn yellow, orange, red, so many colours, all vibrant and pretty. Jak wears his new shoes when him and Dax and Keira head into the jungle to see how the trees look there. All of them wear shoes, which is so odd, they’re used to running around barefoot, feeling the cool moss between their toes and kicking up sand on the beach.

Now, they’re all wearing yakow hide shoes and walking through a dying jungle.

“Not really dying, the trees are just turning colours,” Keira insists, scrambling up tree after tree to pick their leaves. She’s saving all of them, samples, for her own plant journal and for Samos to see when he gets back.

Jak makes sure no creatures are close by and pelts rocks at the ones that hop too close, Dax oversees everything. It’s a good day, even though it’s too hot to stay long, and they all have to fling rocks at a babak that doesn’t want to go away. Dax yells and Keira shouts and Jak nails it right between its big, ugly eyes, and they all laugh when it goes stumbling off a cliff.

None of them care when they peak through the slats of the bridge and see the body. It’s just a lurker, a nasty lurker that wanted to harass them, hurt them. Jak watches the body as they cross the bridge, hanging behind just in case while Keira and Dax edge across.

The babak’s head’s cracked open and there’s bits of bone peeking through purple-red fur. There’s blood too, a lot of blood, it’s staining the sand eco red, not like people blood. He can see little bits of something squishy stuck to the head fur, where the skull is cracked open, and Jak guesses that has to be bits of brain splattered there.

Weird, he’s fought lurkers before, without anyone knowing. Kicked them off cliffs, punched them in the face, snapped their necks, killed them, but he’s never cracked open a skull before. He didn’t think brains would look like that, Keira told him brains are what let people think and learn and do all the incredible things they do. The babak’s brain doesn’t look like much, just pink mush, but maybe that’s because babak’s aren’t much.

They’re stupid and slow and easy to bait. They’re nothing special, not even good fighters.

He watches the body all the way across the bridge, shrugging when he gets across and a wave washes all the way up the little inlet and drags the body into the sea. The sharks will get it now, maybe they like the taste of brains and babak blood. Jak sure doesn’t, it’s bitter and acidy, not like people blood at all.

“C’mon Jak, let’s get back before it gets hotter,” Keira calls and he goes. He’s already forgotten about the babak.

Two months after that, the trees are completely bare. No leaves anywhere except in Keira’s plant journal, and people still aren’t worried. Samos has been growing the food crops they need when they need them. He’s a master of green eco, and he knows how plants work, it’s easy for him to grow a whole crop of grain and keep it alive for the few hours it takes to harvest.

Sure the village looks different without any trees or grass but they’re fine. Sure the days are getting hotter and lurkers are wandering closer and closer, but no one’s worried. Hot spells just happen sometimes, from the seasons changing, from storms far far away. Everything is fine, the farmer says so even though his fields are full of husks and sand. Ms Perch swears it’s just a dry spell, even though her birds are sick from the heat.

The mayor tells everyone to be careful when they go out, don’t do anything in the hottest part of the day, stay in the cool, drink lots of water. Samos doesn’t say anything. Not when Jak asks, not when Keira does, he just brushes them off and flies through the warp gate. Everything’s not fine but it’s fine enough.

They all sweat and wilt for months, the yakows suffer so much that the farmer has to kill them. Jak helps with the butchering, holding them by the horns while the farmer slits their throats, he’s covered in blood every time but Jak doesn’t mind. They kill the whole herd in one afternoon, leading each one down by the water, killing them, washing some of the blood off then going for another.

They almost don’t finish before night fall, the last bit of sun bleeding as red as the blood scattered everywhere. Then Jak helps the farmer load all the carcasses on the cart they made for this.

One yakow gets stripped down immediately, Ms Perch guts it, the sculptor cuts away the hide, his uncle and the fisherman get the spices ready, and the mayor builds up the fire pit. All night everyone’s busy with the yakow, turning it on the spit, cleaning out the horns, helping skin and salt the others. Daxter’s good at cutting up the meat, he can pare the flesh off the bone so good there’s barely a scrap of meat left on em after.

Keira and Jak spend the night racing from hut to hut, gathering plates and cups and chairs and cushions so everyone can sit together. It takes hours for the meat to cook, hours of turning it make sure no side burns, and the moon’s high over their heads by the time it’s ready. Oh but when they finally settle in to eat it, when they finally get a taste of it, every bit of work was worth it.

Jak sits on the grass, at Dax and Keira’s feet, with a plate full of juicy meat and fresh greens in his lap, a cup of warm eco tea at his side. His legs ache from running around, his hands are scraped raw from the horns and his arms feel like jelly from holding those huge things still, but this, this is good. This was worth it. Eating good, fresh meat for once, something that’s not fish, something that’s not tough from being salted down.

Maybe he drops asleep between bites, holding the meat in his mouth as long as possible to make it last longer, or maybe everything’s just so comfortable he thinks he does. There’s a cool breeze blowing over the ocean, pushing away the sticky, mucky heat of the day and keeping the heat from the fire down. There’s quiet chattering all around, every so often someone bursts out laughing, singing.

There’re no leaves swaying in the breeze, no grass under him, but this is good, this is okay. Jak’s here with Daxter who’s not sick anymore, he’s here with Keira who wants to be here, and they’re all okay.

The next day, there’s still meat to eat and Jak savours every bite of that breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The farmer wants to expand the fields now that the yakows are gone and Jak’s the only one around to help. He doesn’t need to collect herbs for Daxter anymore but the farmer gives him other things instead. Straw to make hats because it’s so hot these days, teaches him how to weave the strands together and hold their shape. When they have them, Jak gets the freshest greens to take home or eat in between projects.

The two of them spend a whole week expanding the fields, digging down into the sand to get a firm base for the irrigation system, and clearing out the area. The yakow pounded down all the loose sand and they left enough manure to get a good harvest started. When the heat finishes, this will be a good place for oats and corn, so the farmer says. For now, it just means Samos can grow more crops for them, though they’re running low on seed wheat.

They get more and more every morning, after the plants are grown, but it’s exhausting itself. They’ll need a fresh batch soon and the farmer’s not sure where they’ll get it from. It’s the first worry anyone’s had and Jak leans on his hoe, listening to it.

Such a small worry, almost unnecessary. Samos’ the Green Sage, he’s talking to the other Sages now, he can get seed wheat from one of them, at a price sure but he can still get it. And if he can’t, well, Jak knows his uncle’s traded with people from other villages before, from whole other continents even. If it gets bad, his uncle can go to those other places and get them the seeds they need for crops.

Jak doesn’t think it will come to that but it’s strange to hear anyway. The farmer’s never one to complain about his farm, about the heat, the tides, the little mischief makers running around, even the cheeping birds every morning but never his farm. Jak stands there, panting from hoeing the land, and feels something…tip, fall? Something not right settle in his stomach, jagged and poking him, but it doesn’t hurt, so it can’t be all bad.

After the fields are expanded, Jak gets to go exploring again. There’s nothing left on the farm, no yakows, no crops, so he takes Daxter and Keira to Geyser Rock. Where there’s nothing but sand and husks of trees standing black against the sky.

Geyer Rock’s where they all learned to swim, where Jak learned to throw a punch, where Dax learned to do a backflip and Keira made her first scoutfly. They know it better than the village, where’s the best fishing spots, when the geyser’ll go off, which rocks they can squeeze through for shortcuts. Geyser Rock is theirs and right now, they don’t know it.

So they relearn it. Not barefoot and giggling, not staining their mouths purple with berries, but learning all the same. Daxter finds tiny crystal shards washed up on the beach, sparkling every colour of the rainbow in the sand. Keira finds scoutflies locked up in boxes, boxes so strong Jak has to wrap his hand in a spare rag before he can punch them open. They all find the precursor door closed shut but that’s easy to fix, the only eco vent on the island is closed but sometimes little blobs of eco get spit out.

They hunt around for them, Dax perched on a ledge, Keira climbing husked out trees, Jak creeping along the cliff. They look for a whole hour, long enough for the sun to move right over their heads and the heat to really hit before they find a big enough glob. Jak opens the door and Daxter jumps right into the water, doesn’t stop to get rid of his shoes or clothes. Then Keira joins him and Jak laughs, watching them paddle around, clumsy because it’s been so long.

He stays on the shore for a while, huddled against the door and out of the sun, while Dax and Keira swim. Now’s the time of year that birds would be making nests, up in the cliffs, down in the grass, they’d be singing and swooping, but there’s nothing now. Ms Perch says it’s too hot, they’re keeping away, staying in the cooler places even though they really shouldn’t. He digs up a handful of grainy dirt and lets the pieces slip through his fingers, maybe the birds have the right idea.

The sun slips down, slants away, and isn’t right overhead anymore. The walls of the cove rise up high enough that there’s not a speck of sunlight falling inside anymore and Jak leaves his shoes by the door to go swim. He dives down deep while Keira and Dax laze around on the planks, drowsing or just watching the clouds. He brings up more of the crystal shards, precursor orbs, a power cell even, and piles them on a plank.

Samos says this cove floods during particularly high tides and the sea dumps its rubbish here, but Jak’s never seen anything like this. So many treasures, valuable things, he didn’t think the sea had these many things to throw in a little walled off cove. Daxter gets up to watch him, flopping on his stomach, trailing his hands in the water while Jak dives for treasures.

Dax looks better now, even though the heat makes him sick, not sick like before but sick enough. The heat makes him tired enough that he doesn’t complain about getting piggybacked around, just clambers onto Jak’s back and lets himself be carried. Right now, he’s cool in the cove, his cheeks aren’t flushed, and his face isn’t pale.

His hair’s sticking up in the front, pokey, spikey, and it’s wet in the back and Jak smiles looking at it. Keira’s sleeping on her plank, one leg dragging in the water, and they’re alone here. All three of them are alone, no villagers around, no one to say what’s fine when nothing is.

“We should call you Cap’n Jak,” Dax jokes when Jak brings up another precursor orb, hauling himself onto another plank as he does. There’s more down at the bottom but he thinks this is enough. They can buy something with this, he’s not sure what, but something.

The traders will be coming soon, maybe after the heat spell. They’ll glide over the ocean in their sleek boats with their wares jangling about. Maybe he’ll buy new clothes, or Dax can have a better cane, something with precursor metal to keep him steady. They could get food, foreign food, meat from animals that can’t live here, fruits from plants that don’t grow here. Not that anything’s growing here right now.

‘And you’ll be First Mate Daxter,’ he signs, grinning as Dax sits up. Because it feels good, this feels good. Daxter laughs, loud and free, and there’s no wheeze in his chest, there’s no scrunch around his eyes because it hurts to laugh. Dax laughs the way he used to and Jak can’t help but lean forward and kiss that laugh.

He doesn’t know what makes him do it, why, but he does. One hand on Dax’s plank, steadying himself, the other on Dax’s cheek to keep him there. Dax’s lips are rough, his are too probably, and Dax tastes like the salt water they’ve been swimming in. He tastes like the ocean, cool and salty and familiar, and he sighs into the kiss. He pushes back, kisses back, and his smile tastes just as good as the salt water on his lips.

Then Dax grabs at his wrist, leaning too far, and Jak jerks back trying to compensate but they’re falling. Their planks flip and slip and they splash into the water, laughing and sputtering.

“Wow,” Dax laughs, eyes scrunched up, cheeks flushed, but it’s so different. There’s no pain, there’s no temperature, it’s just Daxter being happy, being just as happy as Jak, and maybe a little embarrassed. Their first kiss wasn’t exactly smooth, but Jak doesn’t care, he’ll always remember it now.

‘Slick,’ Jak signs, flicking water at Dax cause he can. The water’s cooler without the sun beating down on it but it’s refreshing. Everything’s sparkling cool and Jak feels like everything really will be fine. The heatwave will break, and the crops will grow again, Daxter will keep getting better and better and they’ll all be fine.

And in the next few weeks when the heatwave does break, he thinks everything’s fine. Though there’s a solid four days that are so hot and gross and exhausting that no one moves while the sun is out. No one dares step outside their hut, shoes or not, shade or not, because it’s boiling hot. Jak can see the heat when he peeks out the covered-up windows, wriggling and twisting like snakes.

His uncle is out on another adventure, far away Jak hopes, not caught in this heat. He hopes his uncle won’t mind him using all their spare sheets as curtains either. The small ones don’t do anything to keep the heat out, and even though he feels like he’s smothering with the blankets up, it’s better than letting the heat in.

The nights are only marginally better. There’s no sun beating down on them, no heat rising up to bake their faces, but it’s still hot and sticky. The breeze off the ocean dies down, the waves die down and go quiet, it’s eerie and makes it hard to sleep. The nights feel more dangerous without the waves crashing in the background, like lurkers are waiting to jump out, like snakes are waiting to bite them.

The villagers do what they have to at night. Fetching stale, lukewarm water to drink, cooking meals that never really cool off. Samos can’t make the plants grow at night, not in this heat, so they all go without greens for those days, they have to make do with stores and stiff, salted meat.

Jak goes to Geyser Rock when he can, at night, to dive in the cove and get some relief at least, but he can’t do it every night because Daxter’s sick. Heat sick, but still sick, barely able to move again, running a temperature again. He doesn’t vomit or get so tired he can’t wake up, but Samos says it’s still not good. Dax’s gonna get worse again, he’ll need the cane even more, he might need to be taken care of, again.

So Jak’s night are split, between the cove for some relief, and Daxter who’s delirious half the time. He signs words Jak doesn’t know, nonsense babbling, and sometimes Jak just holds his hands down to stop it. He can’t sit up to drink so Jak lifts him and Keira tips eco tea into his mouth, they both rub his back when he starts choking.

It’s a long four days and nights, but they get through it, and at the end, a huge storm breaks. Whipping up waves twice as tall as Jak, swelling rivers and washing away parts of bridges. Everyone battens down, huddled in their huts, alone, and waiting. While thunder cracks and breaks over their heads, while lightning spikes and strikes the husked-out trees left behind.

The mayor’s hut gets struck and catches fire and everyone rushes out to help. The fire rages for a whole two minutes, eco fuelled, whipped away by the wind and carried out to sea, before it sputters and dies. Two minutes of chaos and sparks and shouting and running, then a half hour of rushing to get something over the hole the fire left.

They’re all soaked to the bone, slipping and falling in the mud, half blinded by the pounding rain. Jak and the sculptor climb up onto the roof to nail down a tarp, clinging to the roof with their knees, grabbing each other when the wind gusts up. By the time they get done, everyone’s shivering where they stand, sneezing and coughing and miserable.

Everyone trudges home sopping wet but at least no other huts get struck. Jak flings his wet clothes in a corner and wraps up in two blankets, shivering and shuddering, wincing when lighting sets the night alight. He doesn’t sleep that whole night, thinking of Daxter, worrying about his uncle, jolting up every time thunder rolls. He doesn’t sleep but he can’t move either, not when the thatch roof starts leaking and the floor goes damp underneath him.

The storm lasts a whole two days, two miserable days full of no sleep and aching worry in the pit of his stomach. Jak’s barely awake enough to realise the storm’s over when watery sunlight comes filtering through new holes in the roof. He thinks it’s more lightning at first, wincing and ready for the thunder, but it doesn’t come.

There’s no rain on the roof, numb in his ears, no angry crash of waves on the shore, just a soft shush against the sand. Inside, Jak can see the water that fell through the roof, where it collected, where it’s probably going to ruin the floor, but he doesn’t get up. Everything is too stiff, too numb, and he’s exhausted.

He sleeps for the entire day after the storm, wakes up the next morning with a note from the mayor on his door. It’s thanking him for his service during the storm, it says if he needs help cleaning his own hut that the villagers would be happy to provide it. Jak takes down the note and puts it in one of his uncle’s journals.

Then, he cleans the hut, top to bottom. He borrows a broom from the fisherman and sweeps the water out the door. He gets straw from the farmer and climbs onto the roof to patch up the holes, it’ll do until his uncle comes back and they can fix it better. Jak gets a tub from Ms Perch and washes all of his blankets, they all smell strange, damp and bad, but he scrubs them hard and even gets a piece of soap from the mayor. When he hangs them up to dry, they don’t smell bad, but Jak does, so he heads down to the beach and bathes with the rest of the soap.

Six days of misery were probably a good price for finally seeing some green again. There’s little blades of grass along the path to Samos’ hut, tiny weeds sprouting up from the still soft ground. Samos himself is missing when Jak gets there but Daxter’s awake, and grumpy, because he’s not allowed to leave his bed.

Jak laughs and piggybacks him around the village, Keira doesn’t come because she’s working on a new motor for the village’s eco supply. Dax promises to bring her back something good, and they’re off.

Off looking at the washed-out fields, Jak will have to rehoe those, specially since they might be planting soon. They stop by the sculptor and pet his muse, she’s bedraggled and less shiny than usual, but she preens under their cooing and presses into their hands. They help Ms Perch hang all of her bird cages, well Jak does while Dax supervises. They even stop by the mayor and ask him if there’s anything they can help with, there isn’t, but he gives them a whole melon, and Jak carries it back to Keira.

They eat it together, slicing into it with Keira’s work knife, that she washed twice. Daxter cuts his pieces into cubes, because eating is hard again, but no one says that. They’re all laughing when Samos finally gets back, hands sticky with juice, mouths stained blue from the melon. He looks older, subtle lines around his eyes, and he leans on his cane instead of floating, Jak notices.

He grumbles about them spitting the seeds in his garden, how he’ll have a whole crop of melons and what will he do with them, but it’s distracted. He keeps looking at the sky, then across where Misty Island is, once his eyes settle on Daxter for a whole minute and Jak feels that jagged thing roll over in his stomach.

There’s something wrong, something off, and Samos knows what it is but he’s not saying. Maybe it’s the strange weather, or Sage business, but there’s something. He wants to ask and he doesn’t want to ask, because what if it’s Daxter? He seems fine now, the heat’s gone and the rain’s gone too, Daxter will get better again.

But what if it’s not Daxter? What if it’s his uncle? Or the village, what if-

“Good night you three,” Samos grumbles, climbing up to his room, and Jak watches him go. The thing in his stomach jabs him, hard, hurts, but he doesn’t follow Samos and never asks.

Everything’s fine anyway, the crops start growing again, the trees regrow their leaves. When the traders come, Jak gets a scarf and the farmer gets new yakows and Daxter gets a better cane. Keira sells them some of her inventions and gets bits for her ongoing project in return.

The traders tell them about strange weather from all over, heatwaves and dying plants, lurkers crawling closer to human settlements, new creatures off in the distance even. Some places are still stuck in winter, trapped under foot after foot of snow, or they’re getting flooded out by storms that never end. Some Sages think it’s a planetary event, something that happens once in centuries, others think there’s something more manmade going on.

No one knows for sure, but the traders don’t think it’s anything much to worry about. Things get hard sometimes, all anyone can do is endure, wait out the bad patches until the good ones come around.

The traders stay for two whole weeks, longer than usual, and Jak gets to hear about the far-off places they’ve been to. Some of them know his uncle, a great adventurer, but they haven’t heard from him in so long, they were hoping he’d be here. Everyone’s grateful for the traders, getting things they need and can’t make for themselves, but everyone’s glad when they leave too. Skimming away across the ocean, further along the coast and off to other villages.

Jak watches them go one morning, sails flaring out, wooden sides polished and gleaming. He thinks about becoming a trader someday, getting to see all the things they do, he thinks about being Cap’n Jak with his first mate by his side. He’d love to have the open sea all around him, visit all the places his uncle’s told him about, learn how to price all the exotic things the traders bring.

Jak and Daxter, Master Traders. Sounds nice, feels good to sign, maybe Keira would come with them, even for a little while? All three of them with their own boat, on their own but having each other. They’d live however they wanted, Dax could laze around in the sun, see everything, Jak could kiss him whenever he liked and not just when they were alone. Keira could go to the places that made the parts she had to trade once a year for, she could learn so much.

He smiles dopily as the ships round the corner and disappear, they could do it. Then the jagged thing claws its way into his throat and reminds him what happened the last time Daxter got in a boat. What are the chances of that happening again? Jak doesn’t know and he’d never, ever risk it. No matter how much he’d love being a trader, he could never put Dax at risk and he can never leave Dax behind.

If staying in SandOver all his life is what it takes to keep Dax healthy and happy, then Jak will do it. Not like SandOver’s anything to sneeze at, there’s always something to do, somewhere to go.

For his seventeenth birthday, Samos throws him a party, and he’s completely surprised. The whole village is gathered by the firepit and there’s coloured lights strung between all the new, green trees. There’s a cake on little table and a little pile of presents and most of all, there’s Daxter standing all on his own in the middle, yelling and signing “Happy Birthday!”

He’s seventeen and the whole village celebrates with him, for him. The farmer gives him a yakow skull and the long horns feel familiar in his hands, his fingers curl around them and he remembers helping kill the herd. There’s a new herd now, just three for the time being, but they’re grazing on the new grass in their brand-new pen and they’re happy.

Ms Perch gives him a book on birds and its full of beautiful feathers, all colours, some of them even glow with the very last dregs of eco. He can feel them spark under his fingers, slow and sleepy, and he wonders if he can charge them, if they can hold one anymore. The sculptor presents him with a sculpted flutterbug with fully mobile wings and crystal shards for eyes. And Jak recognises the crystals, he recognises the orange metal of the body, from the things he dove for in the cove, from what Dax found along the beach.

Keira presents him with brand-new goggles, ones with special glass that zoom in on things far away. They fit perfectly, sit on his face like they belong there, and he doesn’t know what to say, how to thank her. He knows she worked hard on these, might’ve traded away her inventions for the parts to this, and he hugs her tight.

There aren’t any more presents but he’s overwhelmed with everything he does have. Slips his old goggles off, puts the new ones on, and wears the sculpted flutterbug on a leather tie around his neck. The other things get put in his hut, and then they party.

They eat cake that’s very nice, sweet and fluffy, and they eat meat that the mayor traded for. Jak doesn’t know what animal it came from but it’s so soft and sweet, cooked perfect, and he enjoys it just as much as yakow steak. There’s music, from a music box the farmer got in exchange for some crops, and there’s dancing.

The sculptor dances with his muse on his shoulder while the farmer works the box, Keira and Jak dance together, laughing and tripping over their feet. Ms Perch and the fisherman hold each other and sway in place, even the mayor taps along to the tune. Dax has to sit down after standing on his own but he sways too, nods his head along, and Jak grins.

He leaves Keira to dance with the sculptor, and yanks Dax to his feet. He doesn’t know when it became second nature to support all of Dax’s weight, but it is, and it’s easy to adjust as they dance. They dance at the edge of the light, almost in the shadows where the villagers can’t see them too well.

Dax laughs breathlessly in his ear, because they’re almost the same height now. Dax is still taller, but not by much anymore, and Jak doesn’t know if it’s because he got so sick or just because he’s caught up. They’re face to face and they’d have to stop dancing for Jak to sign but he really doesn’t want to. He takes it on faith and catches Dax in another kiss, smiling and laughing and sweet.

Of course Dax kisses back, they’ve gotten better at it since the cove. No more falling into water or into each other. The press of lips is easy, the slide of skin is simple, they hold each other and dance clumsily and kiss sweetly. And everything is fine.

Even if Dax needs the cane all the time now, no exceptions, and neither of them know if they want to stay their whole lives in the village but don’t know how to leave. Even if Samos is gone more than he’s here, if there’s something wrong and no one’s willing to say. Even if all that, everything is fine.

For a while, everything is. Jak works for the farmer again, herding yakows, tending fields. Keira works on her inventions, and Daxter finds things to occupy himself. He learns how to carve things from the sculptor, wooden things because stone’s too hard for him, but they’re nice all the same. Jak’s hut starts filling up with wooden things, cups, plates, a set of wooden chimes, even a wooden shutterfly.

Jak knows the flutterbug was from Daxter, from things they found in the cove, but the shutterfly feels more…more. He wears both of them on a leather strap around his neck, under his clothes, and blushes whenever he thinks about them. Dax made these for him, Dax gave these to him, he loves them.

More time goes by and his uncle doesn’t come back, a long time to go without so much as a letter, but Jak’s not worried. His uncle gets caught up in his adventures, learning this, seeing that, he just hopes his uncle is okay. Wherever he is, and Jak hopes he comes back sometime soon.

It’s almost a whole half year after the heatwave broke and the storm crashed over them that the sky goes dark again. Jak’s out with the herd, grazing them closer to the jungle, making sure the new calfs don’t go plunging into the water. The shore extends far enough out that sharks wouldn’t get them, but their mothers go rearing after them and then the whole herd’s splashing and lowing wildly.

He frowns when black clouds cover the sky, grits his teeth when the first boom of thunder echoes across the water to him. He grabs the crook Daxter carved for him and starts herding the yakows back to the village. He’s glad they got the barn up last week, after a whole month of work, but he’s worried too. If the storm that’s coming is anything like the one six months ago, then the barn might not be enough.

The farmer’s waiting for them, helps Jak get all of them inside the barn, and battens down the door from the outside. He knows the door is solid, he made it himself, went into the jungle and cut the trees, dragged them back across the new bridge, but it doesn’t stop him worrying. A frantic herd can plough through anything and the door’s facing the ocean, they’d head straight into the water.

Wrestling a spooked yakow in crashing waves isn’t something he ever wants to do but he’ll do it if he has to, but the farmer sends him off. They’ve got to prepare. Jak spends some time shuttering all the windows, getting out buckets in case the roof starts leaking again. He’s been living with the patch job he did, and it’s held up against light rain so far, he doesn’t have much hope for a storm. He puts all his books in the metal box Keira made him, all his important things go in the box, it’s waterproof and will keep them safe.

Then he leaves his hut and goes to Samos’, where Keira and Daxter are. Samos’ hut is the best one in the village, it can handle storms and not leak, it’ll be fine, but Jak still worries. Last time they were all separated, him stuck in his leaking hut, them stuck out here alone. This time, Keira shutters up the upstairs of the hut, then all three of them hunker down in Keira and Daxter’s adjoining rooms.

They talk, make jokes, but they’re all watching the storm clouds rolling in. Jak goes quiet first, stops signing as much, holds his hands in his lap and breathes slow. Then Keira, she tells them how far she’s gotten on her " _Zoomer_ ", that she just needs to find a reliable power source, but she starts struggling too. The words stumble and fall and lay on the floor, still and quiet.

Dax goes the longest, rambling about the last storm, about his wood working, about what he read in some of Samos’ medicine books. Dax has no problem talking into the silence, cutting it into bitesized pieces with his words. Jak loves that, loves how Dax can talk and talk and talk and never stop.

He’s never been more glad to hear his best friend’s voice, when the world outside goes deadly silent, Dax makes sure the one inside keeps moving. There isn’t a breath of wind outside, the waves go still and the ocean’s glassy. Some part of them wants to think that storm isn’t coming, it got stalled somewhere, fall apart over the ocean, was never coming in the first place.

In the quiet, it’s easy to hope, specially with Dax talking about whumpbees and lighting moles. Then Jak hears it, the angry smash of water on land, the growling thunder. At first it’s far away, barely a whisper in his ear, then it gets closer, roars louder, until it’s right there above their heads. Slamming into the roof, cracking against the glass.

There’s lightning cutting the sky in two, striking out at sea, and everything’s so loud Jak has to slap his hands over his ears. He’s always been sensitive to noise, heard better than anyone else, and right now it’s too much. Dax gives him a pillow, Keira hands him a blanket from their pile, and he does his best to cover his ears with those.

The rain falls, and falls, and outside is dark, somewhere between dusk and night, until night really falls and everything’s pitch black. When he peeks out the window, he can’t see a single light from the village, only the splatter of water on glass. All three of them sit there, listening, holding each other. At some point, Keira drags her bed into Daxter’s room, even though his is smaller, and Jak helps her, wincing when he has to take his hands off his ears.

The two beds really only fit two people, but they make do. Jak sprawls on top of Daxter, Keira squishes up behind, and with the walls close on either side, no one’s gonna fall off. Daxter claps one hand over an ear, Keira gets the other one, and Jak gets the chance to relax for a bit, everything’s still so loud, but it’s just a little better. How did he do this alone last time?

All three of them fall asleep like that, smushed together, half on top each other, buried under all the blankets they could get. When thunder cracks, Jak burrows under the pillows, stuffs his head under them. When lightning flashes, Dax clings tighter, reaching for Keira over Jak’s body. When the rain beats against the wall, Keira scringes away and plasters herself along Jak’s back.

The rain falls and falls and falls. All through the night, with them tangled up with each other. Through the day that’s just as dark and dreary as the night, Keira drags out a light she made, powered by an eco battery. They eat fruit and drink warm tea, eco tea for Dax. Dax whittles something, Keira tinkers with something else, and Jak sits by the window.

They go to sleep together, again, all tangled up but better. They line the walls with blankets so it’s not as cold, since the beds are all shoved up against them. Dax is in the middle this time, Jak and Keira on either side after they both decided. They could feel Dax shivering through the night and keeping him warm with their own bodies should work better than just blankets.

The storm rages harder, somehow, somehow, but it’s not as bad. There’s no leaking, no water rushing in and pooling on the floor. Everything is damp and dull, but it’s bearable. Together, it’s bearable.

The second day passes like the first, listlessly and never ending. Dax finishes carving a tiny herd of yakow, Keira makes a contraption with two tiny pillows to cover Jak’s ears, and Jak watches the waves beat along the beach. They’re so high, breaking nearly all the way to the huts, but they’re not high enough to reach the barn, he can tell. And he’s glad. He’s not sure he’d be able to get across the rope bridge, the wind’s whipping everything away, it might buck him off into the water.

He’s pretty sure the sharks’ve gone deep, holed up down at the bottom of the ocean, but the waves would kill him just as easy. One wrong step and he’d go flying, it’s too dangerous a trip to make, even for the farmer.

The third night’s routine, crawling into bed together. The storm’s almost a lull in the background, it’s wearing on his nerves, grating and fraying them, but it’s still a lull. A constant, he can’t remember when he didn’t hear the clatter of rain or the roll of thunder. He doesn’t remember what warm is or what the sand under his toes feels like, though he’s been wearing his shoes more now. Old habits.

Jak’s probably getting the deepest sleep since the storm rolled in when he jerks awake, sits straight up. First, he thinks it’s the thunder breaking right in his ear, even though he’s wearing the thing Keira made him, then he realises there’s a new noise. A clump-thump-thunk on the roof above their heads, on the second story.

He climbs out of bed slowly, unwrapping Daxter’s arm from his waist, untangling all of their legs, and sliding down the bed. It takes time to get out without waking anyone else, but he manages. Then it’s creeping out the door without creaking and climbing up the ramp from the underneath to not get wet as much.

He remembers doing this so many times, with Dax, trying to scare Samos by getting into his room without being seen. Now he’s trying to get up without getting wet. The hem of his pants get soaked and his shoes are wet through, but everything else is relatively dry as he slips through the door.

The room’s dark, only the glowing eco plants to light it up, but they’re enough to show Samos standing in the middle of the room. His back is to Jak but Jak can still see how much older the looks for some reason. Shoulders slumped, leaning heavily on his cane, head drooping, Samos looks terrible and Jak doesn’t know what to do.

Should he go and ask? Tap him on the shoulder, leave? Samos has been gone so much, only here when someone specifically needs help. Keira says he’s working with the other Sages, they’ve got so much to catch up on after all those years with the warp gated turned off. Somehow Jak doesn’t believe that.

He can’t say why, but he thinks there’s something else going on, something important. And he didn’t ask last time, when he thought he should, so what’ll he do now?

“I’m sorry,” Samos says, just barely loud enough for Jak to hear over the pounding rain. But maybe that’s the point? Samos thinks he’s alone, Jak isn’t here, so it can’t be for Jak. He should go now, before Samos realises he’s not alone.

“Jak my boy, I am deeply sorry,” Samos says, turning to face him and he can’t help himself, he takes a step away.

Samos looks, he looks terrible. His cheeks are sagging down, and his teeth are yellow and chipped. There are new lines and wrinkles cut into Samos’ face, deep creases that look painful, like the skin is hard and cracked. But the eyes, Samos’ eyes.

They’re big and black, full black, not a bit of white anywhere. They’re black and shiny and look wrong, wrong, wrong.

“I tried to, to stop them, to protect you,” Samos cries, and there’re tears streaking down his cheeks, black tears that shine black and purple and bloody red.

“I tried, please remember I tried, but they were too strong. Gol was too strong, how did you do it?” Samos is rambling now, crying harder now. He’s shivering where he stands and Jak’s stuck where he stands.

This is—it’s…he doesn’t understand. Samos is crying, big black tears, and he’s shuddering, gripping his staff so hard his fingers are white. And Jak, Jak’s standing by the door, stuck to the spot. He could run, slip out the door and run down to Keira and Daxter. Barricade the door, keep Samos out until the storm blows over and they can run for help.

He could tackle Samos, knock him out and tie him up. There’s the warp gate, they wouldn’t need to wait for help if they could go to another village and find another Sage. Another Sage would help right? They would know what to do for Samos.

“You’re special Jak, so special. You overthrew the Baron, you killed Kor, you _beat_ Gol, I should have believed in you,” Samos sobs, falling to his knees and his staff goes skittering away. Jak just watches, while Samos cries on his hands and knees, cries like a child.

“You would have saved us, a hero for all time, a champion,” Samos wheezes, coughs, and spits something black on the floor.

Nothing he says makes sense, no sense at all, but when he meets Jak’s eyes, he’s not delirious. He’s sick but he’s not out of his mind, whatever he’s saying, he believes it and that’s worse. Samos is sick but doesn’t think he is.

“I’m sorry!” Samos yells and darts forward, on hands and knees, and crashes into the warp gate. Jak lurches, reaching for him, but he’s gone.

Gone in a splatter of black and flash of warp gate light. Jak’s left alone in the dark room, flinching when lightning cracks outside and wincing when thunder growls after. He doesn’t know what just happened, he doesn’t know what Samos was saying, but he’s the one left here now and somehow he knows Samos isn’t coming back.

The storm’ still raging and Dax n Keira are asleep downstairs, Jak really really hopes they are, and Samos is gone. The room’s dark, except for the glowing eco plants that are enough to show there’s no one else here. There’s black liquid shining on the floor, reflecting green and showing blue, purple, red, and there’s Jak by the door.

He thinks about going downstairs and getting Keira and Dax. He should tell them what happened, bring them here and show them what’s left, but he can’t. No, he can, he just doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to tell Keira what happened to her father and he doesn’t want Dax seeing the black ooze, he wants to protect them and doesn’t care that lying’s wrong.

So, he cleans the ooze away. Rips up the rags they used to hold plants up and wets them with the rain flooding the world away. He doesn’t know how long it takes, wetting the rags, scrubbing at the floor and the darkness. He has to use a knife to dig into the cracks, where the black’s seeped in and stained the wood. He has to wring the rags over and over again, and he knows he’ll have to get rid of them entirely afterwards.

Maybe it takes the rest of the night or it could be an hour, but the floor’s clean and his fingers hurt. They’re tingling, sparky, and aching. The rags get flung into the wind, whipped away in a second, and the warp gate gets turned off. If either of them ask, he’ll say he did it before the storm, just in case.

Then, he heads back down, getting soaked on the way. Daxter’s sprawled on his stomach, fitting himself into the space Jak left, and Jak doesn’t climb back in. He’s sopping wet and he knows his clothes won’t dry for a while yet, he can’t leave them in a heap either because that would start questions. So, he sits. Leans against the wall at the foot of their smushed together beds and listens to the rain pounding away.

No one can say how many days the storm raged by. The days and nights blurred together, always dark, always grey and dreary. When it finally breaks, it’s in fits and spurts, lightning flashes taking longer, thunder losing its voice, the rain stopping then starting then stopping then tapering off into a miserable drizzle. By the time the storm finally blows over, they’re all too keyed up to spend another second inside.

Daxter climbs onto Jak’s back without a word and Keira brings along a rolled up rope ladder in case they need to fix parts of the bridges as they go. And they do. The whole bridge between the first outcropping and the hut is gone, Jak has to jump across and secure it before Dax and Keira can get across.

The village itself is even worse. Nailed down bridges are gone, nothing but the gaps between. Huts are missing parts of their thatched rooves, Jak notices his own is half gone and he’s glad he locked away all his paper things before he left. The fisherman’s boats are gone, both of them, Ms Perch had to run off to the mayor’s hut, half of her birds are dead.

The farmer is marginally better, the barn held up but the yakow are sick now. They spent all that time wallowing in mud, eating wet hay, but they’re alive. All of them. Jak knows there’s nothing he could’ve done, it would’ve been suicide heading out to the barn while the waves washed over the whole beach, but he still feels bad.

Sentinel beach is full of rubbish pitched up by the sea, even though the storm came from the other side. And the jungle? Well the bridge is gone, broken again, and the rivers are swollen past bursting from what they can see. Everything is flooded out and damp, soggy, the whole world feels soggy.

There’s no sunshine breaking through the cloud cover this time, no little bit of warm to get their spirits up, and Jak thinks that’s appropriate. He doesn’t tell anyone about Samos, he can’t, and it’s not like anyone asks. They’re all so used to him not being around anymore, off having meetings with the other Sages.

And what about them? Are they…alive? Jak doesn’t know who he’d ask, if he could ask at all.

The whole village has to pitch in to help fix what the storm did, sloshing around in shoes that feel bulky on their feet, and in waxed coats to keep the water off. Because the storm’s gone but the rain isn’t, falling continuously in a fine mist, keeping everything damp and miserable.

Jak helps bail water out of the barn, herds the yakow off to the washed-out fields while more work gets done. This time they waterproof the barn, put down a good floor of wooden planks that are pushed tight so water can’t seep through. The fisherman has to build a new boat, and Jak helps do that.

The boat takes weeks, cutting and hauling in wood from the jungle, shaving down planks and shaping them into a frame, bending them into place. And in the meantime, Jak helps catch whatever’s washed up in the swollen river. The little bridge there is gone too, but it’s easier to stand in the river with a net now. The water’s up to his waist, rushing through the whole little valley, and the fish swim right into their net.

There are ten pounders that chase away the eels, make it even easier, though they hurt when they jump into faces and plough into body parts. There’s enough fish to feed the whole village while the flooding lasts, and Jak gets some of the best cuts, which he takes back to Dax and Keira of course.

Ms Perch’s devastated by the loss of her birds but she cherishes the ones she has left. She enlists him and Keira and the sculptor to build an adjoining room, a loft really, that’s weather tight with a real roof. She wants a place to keep her birds that will be safe, and she pays them to do it. Jak doesn’t want her money, refuses to take it, but Keira and the sculptor take it without a fuss. In exchange, Ms Perch lets Daxter hang around on her porch while the work goes on, even gives him harder bits of wood to work with.

The next few months are taken up with building, the boat, the barn, the loft, building and building. He likes the constant work, always collapsing in his bed and sleeping the second his head hits, because then there’s no time to think about Samos. No time for the black ooze to cover his dreams and the grey skies to crack his heart open.

Months and months and the skies never lighten, perpetual cloud cover and constant raining. No one knows what to make of it, but they don’t speculate. When another storm blows up, the whole village is ready for it. They batten down, proper wooden windows to shutter and block out the rain, water tight rooms and water tight lock boxes for important things. Everyone has a store room now and they keep it as well stocked as they can, because they’re smarter now.

Jak spends the next storm with Keira and Dax again, all sleeping together, holding each other together. This one lasts two days, this one isn’t as intense, this one doesn’t take anything from them, but they’re all wary.

Keira asks him to build a proper staircase to the second floor of the hut, something covered and protected so they don’t get soaked if they ever need to get up there during a storm. Hauling the wood is hard, nearly impossible, takes so long, but he does it. He chops down the trees, shaves down the planks, fits the posts and builds the stairs, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

How can he tell her that Samos is never coming back? That maybe the whole rest of their lives will be full of dreary rain and storms blowing up and almost taking everything they have away? He can’t. There’s no way. So, Jak builds that stair instead, and then another bedroom because Dax wants him to have a place here too.

Jak doesn’t think his uncle is ever coming back, something is happening out there, way beyond the village, and it’s affecting all of them. He doesn’t feel any kind of way as he totes his things from his hut to the new bedroom he built with his own two hands. The villagers don’t say anything about it, what can they? He’s too valuable to chase off or ostracise, he’s a builder, a farmer, a helper, they need him.

He doesn’t need them though, he could build a boat, one big enough for him and Dax and Keira, and they could all sail away. Or, they could turn on the warp gate, and warp away from this dreary place. Maybe other places are better, maybe they’re worse, but they’ll never know unless they go.

The very first night he spends in their hut, **_theirs_** , not Samos’, not anymore. That first night, he thinks about asking them. Thinks about signing the things he wants but is too afraid to say, asking Daxter to sail away with him, suggesting Keira leave.

Jak can kill things for them to eat, kill anything that attacks them. He thinks about the lurkers in the jungle, the beach, he’s killed so many of them. All the ones lurking closer, the ones he knows and the ones he doesn’t. Bashing in their brains with rocks, snapping their necks with his hands, punching them so hard their bones break, kicking them and making them spit blood. The village maybe doesn’t know that he’s been protecting them too, but he has, and he knows he can protect Dax and Keira.

He doesn’t end up asking though. He shoves a raspberry in his mouth and smiles when Dax makes a joke.

He’s eighteen. Eighteen. When everything falls apart.

The clouds stop drenching them in water, and it feels like a blessing from the precursors themselves. The sun doesn’t peak through but they’re all used to that now, all cautiously adjusting to it. The rain stops, the drizzle, the mist, all of it stops, and the rivers drain back to their right sizes.

They get the chance to walk on hard ground again, no mud, but they still wear their clothes, ready for the torrent to burst any time now. Jak doesn’t think it will though, and he knows something is very wrong when the lurkers start leaving. He sees less of them, trudging along the beach, growling in the jungle, they all bumble off back to where they came from.

One week, two weeks, and there’s no rain to be seen. The clouds stay, the cold stays, but the rain goes. And everyone slowly adjusts to that too. The farmer can seed his fields again, the flooded fields. He had to switch to water plants during the rain, rice, watercress, water spinach, but now they can get back to what they’re familiar with.

Jak asks Keira if there’s a way to make salt water drinkable, and she looks at him strange, but there is. She’ll need to modify some parts she has and maybe some eco, a power cell if he can get it, but she thinks she can do it.

He gets the power cell, he gets her three, and shakes his head when she starts to ask where. He can feel it in the air, something crackling, buzzing in his ears, and knows something’s coming.

“You’re quiet,” Dax tells him one night, when they’re all eating at their very own table, in Samos’ old room. He says it playfully but he’s looking at Jak with big blue eyes, and Jak wonders what they’d look like covered in black. They’re sitting right where Samos cried those black tears, where he maybe died.

‘I’m eating,’ he signs, looking down at his plate because he can’t think of Dax like that. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he came here one night and found Dax crying big black eco tears. If he started rambling about Jak being a saviour and a champion and being so so sorry.

“You can eat with one hand,” Dax says, flicking a tomato at him, and Jak smiles. He flicks back a pea and Keira slaps both of their hands, but they’re all grinning. They’re older, they’re almost adults now, but they’re still them. Dax is still gangly and makes bad jokes, Keira’s still fussy and makes incredible things.

Jak wishes there was a way to catch this, save it. Dax’s crooked smile and big blue eyes, Dax healthy and happy and strong. Keira’s crinkled eyes and big grin, Keira happy and open and here. Jak wants to save this, fold it up in and keep it in his pocket forever. Because everything is not fine, no one wants to say it, or they don’t know it, but he does.

He does, and he wants to keep what he can as long as he can. Dax and Keira laughing, sitting at the table they all made together, and eating the food Jak helps grow and harvest. It would be nice to be wrong, but he knows he is, and it’s barely a month before he gets proof.

A month of no rain, none, and the rivers start to fall low. The farmer has him fetch water from the jungle for their fields but nothing else seems out of place. There’s the well and what’s a little low river after all those months of nothing but rain?

Well, there’s less fish, less fresh meat but they have their stores. The fisherman wants Jak to go with him out to Geyser Rock to see if the fishing’s good there, and Jak’s…hesitant. He hasn’t been to Geyser Rock since he turned off the warp gate, not ready to fall through the swirling light, too afraid of what he might find there. Keira’s been too busy with her projects, and ‘Yes Jak, I’m working on your water filter’. Dax can’t go on his own, he’s too smart to try, and everyone’s been too busy, but Jak doesn’t think he really minds. He hopes.

The fisherman’s insistent, needs his help, but Jak still doesn’t want to. What if Samos ended up on Geyser Rock? What if he’s alive and he’s been trapped there all this time? What if Jak didn’t even see right and the dark eco was just splattered on Samos’ face?

He doesn’t want to live out any of the what ifs and it’s a relief when the farmer needs him instead, because one of the kows is giving birth. Jak needs to be there for a birth, the farmer’s getting too old to deal with the herd and Jak can hold down a raging yakow, he’s needed here.

The fisherman goes, saying Jak’d best come along next time, and Jak stays. Twin calfs are born healthy and lowing, Jak washes the sticky fluids off in the sea, and waits for the fisherman to come back. He checks the calfs in the morning, makes sure they’re still healthy, and waits for the fisherman. He spends half the day chopping and hauling wood from the jungle, noticing how empty it is without the babaks around, and waits for the fisherman.

The moon’s already rising by the time Jak’s finished piling the logs behind the barn, and the fisherman still isn’t in. He knows sometimes the fish are biting so good that the fisherman decides to stay out as long as he possibly can, until the boat’s barely bobbing above the water.

He spends the next day weeding the fields, keeping all the tiny little things out of the roots, he’s restarted too many harvests because of the weather to let weeds get the best of him. Then the next day is him and Dax out on the beach because it’s safer than it’s ever been, Dax finds a piece of driftwood and Jak only has to carry it home instead of it and Dax. The day after that, Keira makes them clean out the hut.

Her father’s plants get put out in the garden where they always should’ve been, the warp gate isn’t touched, but the space is so much more open. They drag their table over by the window and make a little nook for reading books. They even clean out the sink and get it working again, if they can find a way to make a chimney without burning down the roof, they can cook up there.

The fisherman still doesn’t come back, the mayor asks about him, wonders if they should start making a boat to go out looking for him. No one mentions the warp gate, which is good, but no one starts making a raft either. They’re all worried, on edge, but not enough to go yet.

A whole week passes and they all…let it go. Jak notices that about the village, they let things go so easy. His uncle disappeared, and no one’s asked about him in months. Samos disappeared, bit by bit, until no one’s thought about him in months. The fisherman disappears, and they accept that he’s gone.

He can’t help but think if they’d accept him leaving just as easy. He’s useful yes, but so were his uncle, Samos, the fisherman. The village doesn’t _suffer_ without them, but they’re not as well off anymore. There’s no adventurer bringing news from far off places, there’s no Sage making the fields flourish and keeping them all healthy, there’s no fisherman keeping them supplied with meat.

Maybe they won’t miss their inventor and woodworker and extra farmer as much?

Another two weeks pass, and no one talks about the fisherman anymore. Dax wants to ask, Jak can tell, but he never gets past “ _Hey Jak_ ” before he finds something else to say. And now that he’s looking, Jak can see all the places Keira’s been asking for her father. When she tends to his garden, taking care of the plants he loved so much, or when she cleans his things and keeps them pristine. His bed’s shoved in a corner but Keira changes the sheets and fluffs the pillows every week when they clean the whole hut.

He wonders if they can see what he’s not saying in his eyes. If they see through him as easy as he sees through them, then he stops thinking about it.

He thinks about how it hasn’t rained in so long though the clouds are still here, and he thinks about how the rivers are dwindling down, lower and lower. There are places where it’s so low mudskippers are sludging through the mud, pushing their way, and chasing out the fish. Jak’s been doing his best to catch the few left but there’s not many.

The farmer’s been thinking about butchering again, not the whole herd, just one. It’s been a while since they’ve had fresh meat, last butchering actually, and that was years ago. He wants Jak to help, of course, and they’ll roast it in the firepit again. He’s even gone through the herd and picked out an older heifer, one of the two he traded to restart the herd. She’s been giving less milk and her last calf was hard on her, there’s still good meat on her and he wants to kill her before she loses any of it.

Dax and Keira argue over what’s the best cut of meat when he tells them, bickering back and forth over their dinner of crunchy greens and fruit.

“Tell ‘er Jak, it’s the ribs!” Dax insists, drinking his eco tea as viciously as a person can drink tea.

“No, it’s the rump! Tell _him_ , Jak,” Keira yells, slapping the table, they both glare at each other, noses scrunched up. Then they turn on him in sync, and he sighs.

‘I’ll eat anything, don’t drag me into this,’ he signs, then picks up his plate and heads to the reading nook. They have a chair there now, one Dax carved out of lots of pieces of wood and fitted together. There are arms and curling pieces, all sanded perfect smooth, and Jak sits there while Dax and Keira argue away.

He knows it’s friendly, just something to pass the time, but he can’t help the broken thing twisting in his gut. If he doesn’t pay attention to the words, they’re just yelling at each other, shouting, voices loud and hard. If he doesn’t look for the smiles at the corners of their mouths, then they’re just frowning and glaring at each other.

Big blue eyes narrowed and cold, soft green eyes hard and uncaring. Better than black though, always better than black with eco.

The farmer slaughters the heifer the next day, Jak holding it by the horns the way he used to, shoes slipping in the sand, but his hands don’t rub raw. One pair of horns isn’t enough to hurt him this time, and there’s only one pair. Together they get the hide off, then the Ms Perch and Keira appear with a cart, to carry it for more cleaning.

This time Jak gets to laze around while other people get everything ready. Dax gets to help this time too. Fetching whatever spices, hobbling along with his cane sure but he can hobble real quick. Dax says it’s cause he’s finally used to the thing, Jak knows it’s because he carved that one himself. Sanded down the grip until it fit perfect in his hand, shaved the tiniest bits off until it balanced right.

Jak and the farmer get to sit around and chat while the kow gets prepped, the mayor even builds up the fire like last time. This time, there’s shade to sit in, but the ground’s still parched, and they’re all wearing their shoes. This time, the sculptor hauls out a barrel of alcohol he’s been making for precursors’ know how long, and he dips out cupfuls while everyone waits for the kow to cook.

Last time, well maybe last time he brought out his alcohol too, Jak can’t remember, but he gets to drink this time. And it’s sweet, fruity, but there’s something sour that makes him want to scrub his tongue. Daxter likes it, drinks his own cup and Jak’s, then asks for another, and one more when the kow’s finally done and they all sit down to eat.

Keira doesn’t drink any, she says she’s not interested, but Jak knows it’s because she doesn’t think she should. He knows she’s thinking of Samos, what he would say, and he swallows down the glass in his throat, stuffs well cooked, well spiced yakow and doesn’t think about Samos.

Dax though, Dax drinks a lot. Cup after cup, until the sculptor cuts him off with a laugh and presses a cup of water in his hands. Then there’s music, and dancing, in between the clean-up and salting down more meat. People laugh, louder than they should but Jak thinks they’re just drunk. People dance, clumsy and almost falling down, and Jak _knows_ they’re drunk.

This time, Dax doesn’t want to dance. He’s giggling and swaying and throws himself in Jak’s lap the second he gets a chance. He’s loose and warm, big blue eyes unfocused, and Jak leans down to kiss him. A quick kiss, a peck really, on the tip of his nose. Nothing that couldn’t be friendly.

‘Let’s go for a walk!’ Dax signs sloppily, and upside down, but Jak understands. Keira’s dancing with the sculptor, mostly holding him up, and the rest are too drunk to notice Jak and Daxter slipping away. They’re used to it by now, expect it, so they don’t question it.

It’s not like they go far either. Just past the sculptor’s hut, just barely on the beach. There’s no lurkers around anymore, no danger, but Jak doesn’t think this an adventuring kind of night. The moon’s peaking weakly through the perpetual cloud cover, throwing strange shadows everywhere, and the lanterns look like lost things out in the dark. Almost spooky, but not scary.

“I love you man,” Dax slurs, head lolling onto Jak’s shoulder, pressed as close as he can get. He’s warm, the only warm thing around, and Jak basks in it. He can’t remember the last time he felt the sun on his skin, or when he didn’t have to throw on layers of clothes the second he got out of bed.

He wants to see the sun again, he’d do anything to see it, but he doesn’t know how. He’s not a Sage, he doesn’t have some innate knowledge, he’s just a boy that’s good with his hands. He can build things, he can plant crops, tend yakow, cut his own lumber, kill lurkers, shape eco, but he doesn’t know what Samos knew. He doesn’t know how to stop what’s coming.

Can’t stop it so better not to think about it. He thinks about Dax instead, and Keira. They’re doing alright up in their hut, Keira wants to take her “ _Zoomer_ ” out for a test run soon, out across the beach where there’s plenty space. Dax is starting a new project, he wants to try his hand at carving stone, now that he’s stronger. The sculptor promised to give him lessons, and the softer rock to work with, Jak knows Dax wants to start with crystals right away but he’s glad the sculptor knows better.

Dax is stronger now, yes he needs the cane to walk anywhere, but he never falls asleep for days anymore, doesn’t throw up, only needs his eco tea on the bad days. Maybe he’ll outgrow the cane someday, relearn how to walk on his own, not need Jak to piggyback him places. Though Jak really hopes Dax’ll keep letting him. He loves carrying Daxter around, the weight of his best friend on his back, long arms wrapped loose around his chest.

Dax always makes jokes while they go, about Jak being muscle but he’s the brains. About how it’s a good thing he’s skinny and light, lets Jak move faster than if he was carrying Keira. And Keira always smacks him for it, not as hard as she smacks Jak, but that’s just how it is.

“Jak, Daxter, time to go home,” Keira calls, soft, sleepy, and Jak hauls Dax onto his back. He’s knocked out cold, snoring, and Jak doesn’t think they could wake him up if they tried. Keira carries his cane, Jak carries him, and all three of them trudge home in the cold night.

There’s meat again, from the heifer, everyone in the village gets a piece because that’s how it works in SandOver. People help each other because they know they’ll get help when they need it. Dax gets his hands on some cook books and fines so many different ways to prepare the meat they get, every night it’s something different for a week straight. Soups and gravies and briskets and little pies, so many things, Jak can barely keep track of it all.

Then the mayor asks him to head into the jungle and check the eco receptors, nothing wrong, not a thing, but would Jak please have a look? He does have a look, creeping through the silent jungle that’s so so empty, no lurkers around, no snakes, no frogs, not even a fish in the muddy river bed. The only sound is his own footsteps in the undergrowth, his own breathing in his ears, and maybe a bird will whistle out into the silence but that’s swallowed up oh so quick.

The eco collector, at least, is fine. No damage to the vent, no damage to the lens, everything is fine. Jak has no idea what made the mayor think something was wrong but there isn’t, which is strange too. Usually they have to check the collectors at least twice a year, rocks get pushed over the vents, the lens gets too dirty for eco to flow through it. Nothing’s wrong this time, Jak doesn’t even have to shimmy up the tower to wipe away a speck of dust.

The way back is just as quiet and unsettling. The jungle is darker without the sun falling between the leaves, and it’s colder than the village. All the plants used to catch the warmth, make it muggy and humid, almost like breathing in water. Now it’s just more cold, exhausting, constant cold that wears away at his nerves and puts his stomach in knots.

He’s crossing the bridge when he notices something down between the slats. A speckle of red, bright red, and the edge of a blue horn. Climbing down, Jak already knows what it is, but finding it doesn’t make him feel any better.

A yakow, one from the herd, their bull actually. He was the biggest one they had, a huge thing, Jak could barely keep him in check whenever something spooked him. Now he’s dead, skull cracked open with bits of brain seeping out, throat slashed and bleeding sluggishly into the water. They’re too far inland to attract a lurker shark, but not far enough to keep anything else away. Even if the jungle is a ghost town now with nothing in it _to_ attack.

He ends up dragging the bull back to the barn, probably ruining the pelt but that can’t be helped. Something killed their bull, the herd never wandered so far away from the barn, the farmer wouldn’t let them. So what happened?

When he gets back to the village, he finds out what happened.

The entire herd’s slaughtered, bellies gutted, heads severed from their bodies. One of the yearling calves is cut open, guts hanging out, organs muddying up the sand with blood. The farmer is shaken, eyes wide, barely able to hold the cup of eco tea the mayor presses into his hands. He doesn’t know what happened, he was in his hut when the herd started screaming.

Not loud mind you, not long either. The herd started francing up, the bull roared, but then nothing. Nothing but rasping snarls and the sounds of meat being ripped apart, bone breaking, gristle tearing. The farmer barely got the chance to head out before the noise stopped and there’s nothing but bodies.

He didn’t see what did it, only the aftermath. Doesn’t know where the creatures able to kill a full grown, charging bull came from or where they went, but he knows they’ll be back. If it was one or a whole pack of creatures, because they _were_ creatures. People don’t make noises like that, low and rasping but loud enough to creep into his ears and _stay_ there.

People couldn’t slaughter a whole herd like that without weapons either. Six full grown kows, two yearlings and four calves? No, impossible. They would’ve gotten hurt too, but there’s nothing. Nothing but blood seeping into the sand and carcasses strewn everywhere.

“Maybe we could gather some weapons and go check the canyon,” the mayor suggests, a tremble in his voice, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. He’s not…he can’t kill. Jak can see it in the way he stands, fidgeting, twitching, fiddling with his fingers.

“Dude we should block it up,” the sculptor says, because he can’t kill either, whatever did this, it doesn’t matter because the sculptor couldn’t kill it. Not because he’s weak, Jak knows he’s not, the man works with rock all day, chipping away at it piece by piece, but he just can’t kill. No one in this village can, except him.

“Jak says we should stick close to the village, the farmer can move into his old hut for now,” Dax interprets, frowning but nodding along. All this time and the villagers still don’t know their special sign language, never bothered to ask what any of those hand motions meant.

They do what Jak says, because no one wants to go blocking up the canyon at night, and they definitely don’t want to go hunting down whatever did this. One by one they drag the carcasses into the village proper, washing away the blood to keep away anything else that could smell it and come hunting.

Twelve yakows is a bit much to strip down to the bone but they can’t waste the meat. The farmer sits by, staring into the fire they build up extra high tonight, to keep the light even though the sun already set behind the clouds. They lay all the bodies out onto a board and Jak gets to work cutting them out of ruined hides, using a big cleaver to chop away the parts that got savaged.

They’ll have to do something with those parts, not burn them because the smell of cooking meat is an invitation to creatures. Maybe they can throw it on the beach, or fling it out to sea, let the sharks take care of it. Even though it’s harder to work in the dark, Jak’s glad it is because no one else sees the black flecks clinging to the savaged meat. Teeth marks with pools of black liquid, claw marks that left behind black smudges.

The meat is still safe to eat, they wouldn’t eat anything at all if they didn’t know how to purify dark eco, but it’s still bad. Bad that something could leave traces of eco behind like that, bad that the yakows got slaughtered so quick and so easy. Bad that he doesn’t tell anyone else what he finds.

His fingers are shaky and achy by the time he’s finished cutting the biggest pieces out, then it’s off to salt them down. They’ll have enough meat to last a year at this rate, if they use it carefully, and they’ll have to. No fish to catch, no herd to grow, they’ll have to wait for the traders to come by again, and they haven’t so far.

Sometimes rough seas keep them away for the year, sometimes they just don’t come by, it’s never a set thing. Nothing’s ever a set thing apparently. And when they all head home that night, Jak goes up to their kitchen/living room first. He looks at the warp gate, stares at it hard, checks to see if it’s been turned on at all, but it hasn’t.

He should turn it on now, slip through to another village. Find out what’s been happening in out places, if they’re trapped under clouds too, if the sun’s left them, if their rivers are drying up, if they’re losing people. He doesn’t.

In the weeks to come, no one leaves the village, not to the dead jungle, not to the quiet beach. They don’t block up the canyon, but they all draw closer, closer. Ms Perch moves into the fisherman’s old hut, bringing all her birds with her, and asks Jak to make another loft for them. He keeps himself busy with that, instead of tending a herd or fields.

Everyone’s on edge again, waiting for a storm to break, for a heatwave to snatch them up and leave them halfdead. They’re waiting for the things to come back and attack, but that doesn’t happen, not for a long time. The days go by, one by one, and everyone starts tending little garden plots close to their huts. Keira finishes the thing he asked her to make and there’s more fresh water, they only need to put the little thing in the ocean and it gets rid of enough salt to be safe.

The whole village adjusts to a new normal, and maybe that’s the problem. Never get comfortable, never get complacent.

The sculptor doesn’t come out of his hut one morning, doesn’t walk his muse around the village, doesn’t start chipping away at his latest project. His hut is silent, the windows closed and battened down, there’s no sign of him. And there’s no sign of him for days and days.

No sculptor, no muse, they vanish, and this time people ask. They ask what could’ve happened to him, they wonder if he just left them, decided to pack up and go, if he got taken. When they finally agree to break into his hut, there’s nothing out of place except a layer of dust. The chunk of rock he was working on is still right there, all of his tools are there, even the pillow his muse sat on is there.

Nothing’s missing, Dax knows the place well enough to confirm that, and nothing’s out of place. There’s no note, no reason to think he get dragged away or attacked so he must’ve left on his own. But without his things? Maybe he went for a walk and got attacked? But where? Why? He knew how dangerous it was at night, didn’t he?

They all ask but no one goes, no one thinks about looking for him. Too dangerous, even in a group, who knows what could be out there now. So the village gets closer, at home, Jak knocks out some walls until there’s only one big bedroom. Then, he reinforces those walls, makes them thick, strong and sturdy. He cuts a hole in the roof-floor, and Keira makes a rope ladder to climb up and down, just in case they can’t use the outside stairs.

Jak and Dax sleep tangled with each other now, with the beds pushed together again, and Keira sleeps holding onto them. They’re all scared but they don’t say it, won’t, because what’s there to say? There’s no way to stop what’s happening, Dax and Keira get that now, all they can do is be ready in case anything happens.

And it does, again. Ms Perch goes next, just like the sculptor. One day she’s there and the next morning she doesn’t come out of her locked-up hut. This time they break in immediately, Jak breaking down the door, throwing himself against it until it buckled in.

And again, nothing’s out of place, nothing’s missing, except Ms Perch and her birds. Every cage is empty, every single one, and they’re all covered in feathers, like the birds were frantic. But other than the feathers, there’s nothing else strange.

The village is quieter now, deadly quiet, waiting for the next person to disappear into the night. The mayor cuts the power supply at night, says the eco makes the village even more of a target. So, they go without power at night, only using lights when they have to, cooking in the afternoon before the clouds fade from grey to black. Then at night, they all lock up tight and stay there until morning.

Dax asks Jak to make a proper staircase inside the hut, he can’t climb the rope ladder, so Jak does. He cuts up parts of the old barn for timbre, because he can’t go into the jungle anymore. He doesn’t even like being close to them anymore, can feel the jagged, nasty thing in his stomach rolling over, ruffling broken-glass feathers.

But Dax asks so Jak makes the stairs, they’re a tight spiral but they’re good enough. They stop using the outside stairs nearly entirely.

The mayor goes next, but he goes different. There’s shouting, yelling, crying, all of it echoing out to their hut. Jak’s up first, sits right up in bed, breathing so hard his chest hurts. He’s out the door first, with a capsule of eco banging against his hip, with a sturdy wooden staff. Keira’s behind him with a metal rod, part of a project, and Daxter’s after her.

Jak’s across the bridges first though, and he’s the one slamming himself against the mayor’s door. The doors are reinforced now, all of them are, but Jak’s determined. He ends up breaking open a window instead, squeezing through and getting there just in time to see the mayor being dragged out another one.

Inside the house is dark, no lights because that would attract the creatures, but Jak can see the flailing silhouette. He can smell blood, rich and metallic, and when he runs across the room to grab at the mayor’s shoulders, his boots go sticky with it. Oh but he’s too late, isn’t he always?

The mayor slips away under his reaching fingers, out the window and down into the water, Jak hears the splashing and frantic screaming. Then, there’s nothing. The mayor’s under the water, the creature took him down, whatever it was, and he’s gone now.

“Jak?” Dax pants, scared and terrified, a trembling voice in the dark.

They should…they should leave. Not look around, not turn on any lights. There’s something out there, hunting them down, one by one. They should go back to the hut, upstairs maybe, where it’d be easier to hear anything coming after them. He should make them go, but he’s stuck here. Always stuck.

He thinks about Samos, Samos saying Jak would save them, but how? He couldn’t save the herd, didn’t get the chance. He couldn’t save the sculptor or the Ms Perch, not the mayor, not Samos either. Can he even save himself from what’s coming for them?

“Jak,” Dax calls, clomping across the floor with his cane, in his shoes. Jak hears when he steps in the sticky patch of blood, the _squelch!_ is wet in the silence. Dax wraps a hand around his wrist the same time Keira finds the light switch, turning it on even though that’s supposed to be dangerous.

Does it matter now? What’s dangerous or not when those things don’t seem to care?

In the light, Jak can see how the creature got in; through the window. There are claw marks in the wood, bites taken out of the sill, it came in, grabbed the mayor, and dragged him back out. Dax’s eyes are big and terrified, and Jak knows his are too, but neither of them say anything.

They don’t stop to look at the black streaked blood on the floor, Jak knows what it is, Dax probably does too. Jak’s not going to spend another night scrubbing it away. Keira doesn’t turn the light off as they leave, but she does nod over at the farmer’s hut, his new one. The door’s swinging open on its hinges and there’s a blotch of darkness in the grass, on the wooden steps.

The light spilling out from the mayor’s hut is just enough for that black blood to shine, and they don’t stop. They’re the last ones left now, the only ones.

Jak should make them run back home, throw Daxter on his back, grab Keira by the arm and drag them all home as fast as they can go. The monsters could come for them next, pick them off along the bridge, break the bridge so there’s no home to get back to. The creatures could be clawing their way up the outcropping right now, sneaking into their hut as they walk.

He’s exhausted though, so tired, he leans on the wooden staff he brought, lets Dax’s fingers around his wrist keep him moving. Keira has Dax’s other hand, and she’s pulling them along, a village of three, back to their hut. Jak can’t hear anything but the waves crashing on the shore, constant and mocking, nothing but their own breathing and their hearts breathing.

No one says anything they get home, locking the door behind them, shoving things in front of the windows, barricading themselves inside. Keira climbs their spiral stairs and locks the trapdoor, makes their bedrooms as secure as she can make them. Then, they all lay down in their beds, no one facing each other.

Jak doesn’t sleep, and he knows Dax and Keira don’t either. Neither of them ever start breathing slow and deep, neither of them ever stop fidgeting either, they don’t think they are, but Jak can hear them. Because he’s listening hard, for the creatures to start climbing up the outcropping or for them to start roaring and screaming. Maybe he’s waiting to hear the warp gate turn on.

Maybe it’s daytime, maybe it’s not, but Keira eventually gets up. Slips out of bed and gets her flashlight, then she heads up to the second floor. Jak waits to hear any noise, then he heads up too.

They spend the day reinforcing the walls, ripping up parts of the covered staircase and doubling the walls, covering the windows. Keira rigs up a pulley system and Jak hoists her up, so they can start on the roof too. They make a stove pipe out of parts she rips off of her zoomer, the one they never got to test, and they block up the chimney, so nothing can climb down.

Daxter watches them work, helps when he can, but he’s too shaky to do much. Jak knows he’s terrified, and never learnt how to build things like this. He’d be in the way and Jak knows Keira’s one mistake away from flying into a screaming, shouting rage. Dax keeps himself occupied with cooking instead, testing out their new stovepipe, keeping them fed with sandwiches and watered on eco tea.

They might have to start being careful with the eco, if the jungle supply goes out, then there’s no telling when or how they’ll get more. Food they’ll be okay with for a while, they have their stores locked away and they have their garden. Jak knows if it comes down to it, Keira can help him build something to hang halfway down their outcropping. He can fish from there, drop a net even, and see what they catch.

If things get really bad, he can head out to the jungle to see what’s there, even onto the beach. He doesn’t think the things will be out in the day but who knows anymore?

The next day is as silent and dark as the last, Jak sleeps a bit this time, closes his eyes and wakes up when Keira slams the trapdoor shut. Daxter’s looking at him when he gets up, eyes swimming with all the questions he doesn’t want to ask. Jak raises his hands, almost tells him what happened with Samos, what Jak thinks is happening now, but lets his hands drop again.

The second day is spend reinforcing their trap door and figuring out some way to dig down into the outcropping, for a basement shelter. Keira read about it in a book, people who live in places where the wind can pick up houses and fly away with them make basements to hide in. She thinks it would be a good idea, store food down there, some blankets, make a safe space in case they can’t get out the door.

“How long’ll that take?” Dax grumbles, rolling his eyes when Keira points out all the things they need to do.

Jak knows it’s because he can’t help, he knows how to carve stone, not break it. He can’t help him dig the basement, he can’t help them do much, cause he’s too weak, cause he was sick and still is. Dax never talks it about it, never once, but Jak knows it bothers him. What he can and can’t do, how helpful he can be, especially now.

“We can start tomorrow, we have shovels here, somewhere,” Keira mutters, glancing around their messy room. There’s planks of wood piled in a corner, shavings all over the floor that they don’t bother sweeping up. What’s the point? There’ll be more shavings there soon and they all have shoes.

Jak doesn’t think the basement is a good idea, none of them know how sturdy the rock is. They could bring the whole hut down on their heads, or they could dig all the way through the rock and floor the place. He doesn’t like variables like that, but Keira’s determined. Her eyes are hard and her mouth’s set in a firm smile, she’ll dig with her bare hands if she has to. She thinks this is her only chance to be safe, strong walls all around, no chance of anything digging through and snatching her.

Keira’s terrified and she’s sick of it, she’s scared, and she doesn’t want to be. She’s used to building things to fix her problems, it’s how her mind works, so why not build this?

‘Okay, we can try,’ Jak signs after looking over all her plans. The trapdoor will be in the corner, far enough away from the bed foot that they don’t step on it when they get off but not so far that it’s too far. They can all jump out of bed and get to the door in a second, they’ll have to work out how quick they can get down the stairs but that’s for later.

Daxter glances at him, lips pressed tight in a line, eyes hard, but he doesn’t say anything. Jak knows Dax wants to say something else but he’s biting his tongue. There’s a lot all of them should be saying but so much they aren’t.

Work starts on Keira’s basement the next day, after breakfast that’s warm vegetable soup. None of them have seen the sky in days, too scared to pull back a board and see something staring back at them. Jak prises up some floorboards, making sure not to break the whole floor, and Keira tests the soil. Dax watches them from bed, slowly whittling away at a new spoon.

The doorway’s barely big enough for them to slip through but that’s perfect, something just big enough is better than something that’s too big. Keira starts digging and Jak holds crocus bags open for the dirt, if they ever work up the courage to leave the hut again, they can use this for their garden. She gets a whole foot down before she hits rock, the shovel clanging unpleasantly, and Jak has three bags full of dirt.

‘We need pickaxes,’ Jak tells her, brushing away the dirt and feeling the rock. He knows they don’t have any here. Keira knows the only place in the whole village that has pickaxes, is the sculptor’s abandoned hut.

‘We can forget it,’ Jak suggests when the realisation washes over her, cold and unpleasant. She’s petrified of what’s out there, but she’s horrified by what could happen without her basement.

“I’ll go, tomorrow morning. We need water anyway,” she adds, brushing everything off like it’s nothing.

“We should go together,” Daxter says, tossing the new spoon at him. Jak nods, catching it, and there’s a bird in the handle. A pretty thing, carved so delicately, even the feathers are detailed.

“Tomorrow then,” Keira agrees, smiling quick, too quick. She’s not fooling anybody, but nobody says anything.

The rest of the day is silent, Dax signs with Jak all day long, using signs Keira doesn’t know. She frowns at them, trying to figure out what they’re saying, probably thinks they’re talking about her behind her back, but they’re not. Dax is telling Jak over and over how much he loves him, and no matter what happens tomorrow, Dax’ll still love him.

Jak’s saying nothing bad will happen, they’ll be okay, but Jak loves him too. He feels like this is his last chance to tell Dax about Samos, that someone’s been using dark eco to do bad things, but he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t think he can at this point. He thinks the words are locked up in his heart, trapped behind his ribcage, and he lost the key a long time ago.

They actually sleep that night, Jak holding Dax’s hand under the covers, Keira with her back to both of them. Outside there’s just the sound of waves crashing, every so often a tree will creak as the wind blows by, but nothing else. There’s nothing else out there to hear.

Jak falls asleep listening to the sounds he grew up with, and he wakes up when Keira shakes him.

“It’s morning,” she tells him, then shakes Dax too. He doesn’t ask how she knows, he can see how the plank hasn’t been put back properly across the door. She went out.

They all dress in silence, and darkness, they’re saving the eco lantern. They take food with them, salted meat from the yakows, and they take their weapons. Jak uses the staff, its heavy wood and he knows how to fight with it. Dax straps a knife to the end of his cane, shifts how he holds it so he doesn’t get cut. Keira brings her new bat, studded with sharp bits of metal, Jak doesn’t know when she made it, but she looks comfortable holding it.

One by one they slip through the door, Jak first, then Dax, Keira last. She locks the door behind them and Jak shoves the plank back in place after. They’ll both need to be there to open it again and his stomach flips thinking about it, his stomach feels like someone’s been swinging Keira’s bat inside it.

Outside hasn’t changed at least, the clouds are just as grey as they ever are, the sea too. He thinks that means a storm’s coming, and he doesn’t know how he’ll deal with that. How Keira will, she’s fraying faster than him or Daxter, he doesn’t think they can weather another storm together. How else will they though? Alone is dangerous and together is volatile.

They go creeping along the bridge, single file, all eyes peeled, all ears pricked. They get to the main square and the farmer’s blood is still there, burned into the grass now, eco bubbling in the mud. Keira flinches away from it, Jak just watches as it shines, he doesn’t care anymore.

The sculptor’s door is closed, not locked, but someone did pull it closed before they stopped going that way. Dax stands outside while Keira goes in and Jak stands just in the doorway, listening for anything, anything at all. Inside, Keira’s taking her time, being careful not to make too much noise, just in case.

Jak thinks Dax should’ve gone in, he knows that hut best, he spent enough time there, but they’re letting Keira do what she wants. Jak stares out across the village, the empty huts, and wonders what kind of life they’ll have from now on. Almost too afraid to do anything, definitely too scared to go anywhere. Could they slip through the warp gate? What are the chances of everywhere being as terrible as here?

Geyser Rock, at least, isn’t safe. The fisherman got lost out there, on the way, on the rock itself? Doesn’t matter, too much of a risk. Maybe Rock Village is better? Or the Yellow Sage? No, no Sages, they’re all corrupted by whatever they were doing.

“Daddy?” Keira gasps, and Jak spins around.

“Daddy!” Keira shrieks, looking at something out the window, across the beach.

“Keira what are you-” Daxter starts, crowded Jak in the door, but Keira’s breaking the window with her bat and scrambling through. She falls out, skins her knee, but she gets up and runs anyway. She drops, rolls into the sand, then gets up again and keeps running.

“After her Jak!” Dax hisses, smacking him, and Jak nods, numb, mute. He’s half a step after her when he stops, stuck in place. Daxter.

‘I can’t leave you,’ he signs frantically, watching Keira slowly disappearing into the distance. She’s a blotch of green against the greyscale, bobbing away, pelting up sand behind her.

“Go!” Dax growls, pushing him, hard, and Jak stumbles. The disgusting, broken thing is lodged in his chest now, stabbing him with every wild beat of his heart, cutting him to pieces.

He has to choose between Daxter, Dax, standing here with him, lips curled away in a snarl, and Keira. Keira who’s running away, just a speck, almost around the corner. Jak feels that thing in his chest freeze over when Keira disappears and he’s pelting off after her.

He’s leaving Dax behind, jumping and landing harder than he should. He’s got the staff, holding it just high enough to not drag, and he’s running down the beach. He could seven, running after Dax, laughing and screaming when the waves lapped at their feet. He could be twelve, racing Keira and Dax, whooping when he beats them both.

His chest hurts, aches, and he’s breathing hard. The corner’s coming up, right there, and he pushes harder to get there faster. The screaming starts when he banks the corner, veering into the water ever so slightly.

Then. Then he stops, stumbles to a stop, gets stuck again.

Keira’s…she’s there. She’s screaming, on her back, her bat flung away. She’s bleeding, from a gash in her side, from her leg. There’s a junk of flesh missing from her thigh and it’s gushing blood into the sand, muddying it, soaking it, and it’s black tinged.

She’s screaming, crying, flailing, but she can’t get up, and Jak can’t help her. He’s stuck in place, watching her cry and bleed out.

“Jak! Jak please!” she screams, twisting around, painfully, bit by bit. Her face is streaked with black blood, it’s smeared across her mouth.

“Jak!” she shrieks, loud, high pitched, and he finally, finally, lurches forward. Stumbles, almost trips, but he’s there, by her. He’s on his knees, cradling her head, pulling her close.

“It-I, Jak,” she’s crying now, crying so hard she’s shaking with it. Her tears wash through the black blood, and he can see where it’s burned her skin, where it’s still eating into her flesh, and his hands tingle.

He wants to tell her it will be okay, that she’ll be fine. The eco collectors are out here, he can get some green eco and heal her. She’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. But he can’t, he needs his hands to lift her up, to heft her onto his back and hold her there. He can’t say anything because he needs his hands, to hold his staff, to hold her.

And then what? Take her back to Daxter, take them both back to the hut, then come back out on his own. He can fight, Keira couldn’t, but he can. Oh Precursors, this was his fault, he should’ve grabbed her.

“Jak, Jak, Jak,” she mumbles into his hair, head lolling as he runs them back to the village, too aware of her blood soaking into his clothes, of the tingling. They’re around the corner, he can see Daxter up by the huts.

“Jak,” she whispers, slurring his name.

His breath’s catching in his throat, stuttering out his mouth, he wants to cry, he wants to scream, but he can’t. He has to take care of her, has to take care of all of them. Has to get back to Daxter. So close, just a little more and he can climb up.

“ ** _Jak!_** ” Keira screeches, right in his ear, and he stumbles. Something’s…she’s being pulled away. He grabs at her thighs, holds on, but his grip’s slick with her blood and she gets ripped away from him.

And when he turns, she…

There…something, some _creature_ , the **_monster_** has her leg in its mouth. It’s big, big like a yakow, down on four legs, and it has Keira. He feels everything slow down, freeze to a crawl, and it’s just him and this monster.

This blue thing with teeth clamped around Keira’s leg, with a glowing yellow thing on its head, with dark eco drooling from its mouth. Jak _knows_ this thing, from nightmares, when he was a child. And that makes him mad, that makes him _furious_.

How _dare_ this be real? Who gave it the **_right_**?

He brings up the staff, slow as molasses, and brings it down on the monster’s head, right on that disgusting yellow glow, gradual as a glacier. Everything moves so slow after all. Jak sees his staff connect, watches the monster jerk away in pain, and jerk Keira with it, but he brings the staff around again, sluggishly, and cracks it across the bottom jaw.

Which immediately hangs open, gapes sickeningly, but it drops Keira. Keira who’s not moving, who drops like a lump of wood. The monster howls, jaw not working enough to growl, and Jak smacks it one more time, again on the nauseating yellow crystal, and this time it cracks.

He hears it, a low noise, like ice breaking, and the monster goes down. It starts bleeding in the sand, black blood everywhere, and Jak rushes to grab Keira.

Time speeds back up and he’s dizzy, he’s shaking, he lifts Keira. She’s not moving, barely breathing, but she’s alive, she’s alive for now.

He turns back to the huts, heart spluttering in his chest, and Dax is gone, and his heart stops.

Daxter? Dax? Dax!

Jak’s scrambling up with Keira in his arms, straining his legs, but he doesn’t care. He left his staff next to the monster, stained with its blood, but he doesn’t care. He only cares about Daxter. Where’s Daxter?

His head’s whipping back and forth, looking for one speck, one glimpse of that fire bright hair, listening for that voice. For Daxter. Where’s Daxter?

He runs to the middle of the village, to the fire pit, and looks, listens. But there’s nothing, no one, only his own blood crashing in his ears, so loud, thunder loud. He runs to Ms Perch’s hut and listens, looks out to the barn, the fields, and there?

By the outcropping, it’s half of Dax’s cane, and it’s…it’s bloody.

Jak doesn’t know how he gets there, with Keira in his hands, never dropping her. He runs to the outcropping, not caring that other monsters are around, that other monsters could get him. He gets to the cane and looks around again, and spots blood, fresh, red blood, behind the farmer’s hut, going up steps. There's a shoe at the bottom of the stairs, chewed up and ripped, and there's blood. 

The blood’s leading him and he lets himself be led, not caring if it’s a trap. He climbs, only using his legs, panting and sweating and forcing himself to keep going. More, more, just a little more. Keira’s—she’s, he thinks she’s still breathing in his arms, her eyes are closed and her head’s lolling, like a doll. Precursors please let her be alive, let Daxter be alive.

When he finally gets to the top, there’s more blood, still red, still fresh, and he follows it like a stupid little crocapuppy. Jak lurches and trips after it, not caring at this is the perfect place for the monsters to jump down on him. He doesn’t care!

‘Dax,’ the name’s caught in his throat, stuck in his throat, like all the other words he’s ever wanted to say.

Daxter’s there, lying in the grass, and he’s fine. No claws, no bites. Dax’s there, gasping in the grass, and he’s bleeding. His own cane’s sticking out of his chest, knife first.

Jak…laughs, a breathy huff, and collapses next to him. He goes down careful though, because he still has Keira. Sinks to his knees first, then keeps going until he's sitting. He lays Keira down carefully, lays her out so well that she could just be sleeping. If he doesn't look at the black blood eating away at her, killing her...killing her. 

'Dax,' he signs, with blood fingers, with trembling hands. 

'Dax c'mon,' he begs, reaching down, dragging Dax into his lap and gagging when the cane comes with him. There's a scream building in his throat, a wild sob trapped there, but it can't get out. 

'Dax please.' and he can barely form the words, he's shaking so hard, crying, he's crying. Tears blinding him, until the whole world is a watery, wretched grey. 

'Dax,' his juddering fingers sob, because he can't. 

He can't, can't...there's nothing. Nothing but the wash of grey, the sky, the grass under them, nothing but miserable grey. No fire, no green, nothing here with him.

Jak cries, tears rolling down his cheeks, falling into muted fire red hair. He cries, trembling fingers curling around a black stained face. Daxter and Keira, he should've protected them. He should've **_told_ ** them.  

They all, they all should've made a boat, sailed away when they could. Now they can't, not unless Jak makes one for himself and leaves, not unless he takes their _bodies_ with him. That's all they are now, bodies, because they're dead. Dead and cold in his arms, no matter how much he begs and cries. 

And at least, well at least, he won't have to stay here much longer. The growling is far off, a low rumble at the back of his throat, but it's getting closer, louder. Soon, but not soon enough, it'll be thunder loud, right in his ear. He'll be the one getting eaten alive by monsters and dark eco, he'll be the one screaming for someone not there. Precursors help him, but he couldn't wait. 

With First Mate Daxter in his arms and his inventor by his side, Cap'n Jak was ready to set sail, because everything's fine. 


End file.
